Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi Complete ... - BrahminVoice.org

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
akrthopasakah (raw seekers) take longer to gain drdha jnana
(unshaken knowledge). People ask: “How did ignorance (avidya)
arise at all?” We have to say to them: “Ignorance never arose. It has
no real being. That which is, is only vidya (knowledge).”
D.: Why then do I not realise it?
M.: Because of the samskaras. However, find out who does not realise
and what he does not realise. Then it will be clear that there is no
avidya (ignorance).
Talk 290.
Mr. Sagarmull, a Marwari gentleman, a cotton merchant from
Bombay, seems learned in Srimad Bhagavad Gita. He asked:
Srimad Bhagavad Gita says: mattah parataram nanyat kinchit and
later on sutre manigana iva - “there is nothing different from Me”
and later on “like beads strung on a thread.” If there is nothing but Sri
Krishna, how can the world be said to be like “beads on a string?”
M.: It means that the sutra (string) and the mani (jewel beads) are not
apart from ME. There are no maniganah (row of beads) apart from
the string (sutra) and no string apart from Me. The sloka emphasises
unity and not multiplicity which is only on the surface.
D.: Unity can only be after merging into Bhagavan. True - but till
then there must be diversity. That is samsara.
M.: Where are we now? Are we apart from Bhagavan? The samsara
and we are all in Bhagavan.
D.: But that is the experience of the jnanis. Differentiation persists
until jnana dawns. So there is samsara for me.
M.: Samskara (predisposition) is samsara (cycle of births and
deaths).
D.: Right. “All this is Vasudeva” - this truth has been forgotten by us.
So we cannot identify ourselves with God.
M.: Where is forgetfulness?
D.: Like svapna.
M.: Whose svapna?
D.: Jiva’s.
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